Virtual flight recalls Marin's role in Pearl Harbor attack

A group of vintage airplane enthusiasts plan to use computers to re-create one of the most unwitting and harrowing missions in U.S. military history, which began in Marin and ended in the middle of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Friday marks the 71st anniversary of the Japanese attack on America's war ships that resulted in the deaths of 2,400 Americans and vaulted the country into World War II.

The day before the attack, a dozen B-17 aircraft that had assembled from other parts of the country rumbled down the airstrip at Hamilton Field in Novato, headed for Hickam Field in Hawaii.

With tensions in the Pacific mounting in late 1941, the U.S. Army Air Forces sought to strengthen itself by dispatching the B-17s to the Philippines. Hawaii would be a stopover to rest and refuel. The B-17s were reconnaissance planes at that time, rather than the bombers they later became during the war.

As the group approached Hickam Field the next morning they found chaos. Pearl Harbor was under attack, and the B-17s, stripped of guns and ammunition to reduce weight to make the 2,400-mile flight, were at the mercy of Japanese fighters. Initially American radar operators on Oahu mistook Japanese forces for the B-17s flying from Hamilton.

"They left Hamilton in peacetime and they landed in the middle of war," said Randy Cain, a member of the group FS Vintage Air who lives in Eugene, Ore.

Cain and others have painstakingly gathered information about the flight from Marin, which he has fed into a Microsoft flight simulator program. He and about a half-dozen other enthusiasts from around the country will make the virtual flight Saturday on their computers, which have foot rudders and yokes connected.

"We have to stay on top of everything for those 14 hours," said Cain, who has done the virtual flight — dubbed the "Iron Man" — in years past. "We have to monitor air speed and weather conditions, everything. We do it to commemorate those who made that flight."

Fairfax resident John Martini, a Bay Area historian, worked as a chief ranger at the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor from 1982 to 1984 and often spoke to visitors about the B-17s out of Hamilton.

"They had no defense," Martini said. "They had no idea what they were heading into. Once they arrived they had to scatter and go in all different directions to try to survive. They were sitting ducks."

One pilot turned out to sea and tried to land at another airstrip while others did make it to Hickam under enemy fire. One plane was forced to land at the Kahuku Golf Course on the north part of Oahu. Another landed at an auxiliary strip at Haliewa on the northwest coast of Oahu and another at Bellows Field on the east coast of Oahu.

The entire landing is believed have lasted a frightening 10 minutes. Four of the dozen B-17s were destroyed.

The real-life story was made into a largely fictionalized account in the 1943 movie "Air Force," which stars John Garfield and Gig Young. It won an Oscar for best film editing in 1944.

But the drama of that day couldn't be matched by Hollywood.

"They weren't expecting anything like what happened, it must have been a tremendous shock," said Novato resident Edna Manzoni, who wrote a chapter about World War II in the book "Images of America: Hamilton Field." "It's an important part of Hamilton's history."